Honey

Monday morning, minutes before my alarm clock urged me into another week, Beth came from out of nowhere with a "Honey!" that sounded like she was getting ready to tell me someone died in the night or a stranger was sleeping in our bathtub. Let's just say her tone got my attention.

This was the morning after we watched a documentary called 180* South. It follows a group of guys and a girl and their epic journey to Patagonia to climb Cerro Corcovado. These are guys my age who are not tied down with families and jobs and mortgages. These are guys who are not satisfied with living life in one place for very long. These are guys who make me think, "Dammit! I'm wasting my life." Watching this, the night before Beth's "Honey!" I laid awake trying to translate the zest for life these guys have into my own life. How can I keep the important things in my life and still experience this intensity I just experienced in this documentary. I fell asleep in these thoughts with dreams of freedom.

"Honey!"
"I think I'm pregnant."

I laughed at first because it struck me as the worst way to tell your husband you're pregnant. It wasn't the best way to start a Monday either. I demanded proof and she stuck a pregnancy test in my face and there it was: blue lines. A blue line crossed a circle and a blue line slashed a square. Beth assured me this was code for "Game Over." I claimed a faulty test, but she swore to Thor there are often false negatives, but never false positives.

It didn't take me long to resign myself to another kid coming along. I love my boys. They take a lot of life out of me, but they certainly add a lot I would never have otherwise. We just thought we were done, and the idea of going back to square one was not a pleasant thought at this time in our lives.

All day at work, I would take daydream breaks. Or maybe I worked in between daydreams. The consequences of number three kept crashing in around me. We would need a bigger car within the next nine months. We would need to make more room in the house. We would need to grow more arms by Christmas. The stairway gates that keep Leon and Silas from throwing themselves to their death would have to stay up even longer than expected. I need more money. It is going to be a zoo in this house!

I found myself staring out the window of the coffee shop thinking about baby names and poopy diapers. Israel suggested the name "She It Hill."

After work I ran to Krogers with instructions to get another pregnancy test because the culprit this morning was old and out of it's package. Might as well wait a few days and try again just to make sure. They were behind a glass case. People use them to cook meth maybe? I asked the lady helping me if I looked pregnant. She was amused and said my beard looked pregnant.

So I got home with my loot from the grocers and sat down to a meal. Of course, the topic of conversation was a mix of "What are we going to do with a new human in the house" and "Leon, sit down and take the plastic bag off your head." During the meal I pick up the box of new pregnancy tests and read the instructions: a plus sign for positive and a minus sign for negative. Wait...what? We scrambled for the test from that morning to confirm. That's not a line for pregnant, that's a minus sign! A glorious minus sign to subtract all our worries from this day!

We did a little dance and hooped and hollered. Beth said she is relieved but a little disappointed. I said I'm sailing to Patagonia.